Short prep and cook time – people are busy! Most recipes take 30 minutes or less to make.

No fancy equipment – all you need is a wok pan, a pot, a wok spatula and a cleaver.

Single/four-serving – but easily scalable to feed more or less!

No more boring Chinese Stir Fry!

Available in softcover, epub, mobi, and pdf!
Let me prove to you that ANYONE can cook mind-blowingly delicious and simple Yunnan Cuisine with accessible ingredients.

If you are a beginner: this is the perfect book for you. I will guide you, step by step, from grocery shopping –> prep –> creating inspiring food.

If you are an experienced cook: this is also the perfect book for you. Use my recipes, traditional Yunnan flavors, and methods as inspiration to build upon!

Order this book online , directly from Roz if you’re in China through a Chinese bank transfer or I’ll send to you in mid-July when I’ll be bringing copies to Toronto.
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Every country throughout the world has their own typical or cultural bread. China is no exception with their mantou and baozi, which are rolls of dough steamed in stacked covered bamboo or (now) metal baskets at boiling temperature, sometimes being stuffed with meats or vegetable combinations. But perhaps a fairly unknown but interesting, tasty and most-like Western bread is Guandu Baba.

Mantao and Baozi Shop at the end of the day

Baba is a yeast bread, made in my local neighbourhood market near Guandu Ancient Town in a 40 meter square bake shop. But it’s not your traditional Western loaf, cut into slices, but a 10-15 centimetre round, so delicious with a wonderful texture like some Western breads. Since finding Baba, the baking couple have become my friends, sharing our creations in bread making and our little secrets (even though the language barrier is great, we still enjoy our short conversations). When I asked to watch them and know more about this bread process, they obliged.

I have used Guandu Baba for making salty and fruit pizzas as well as my main breakfast food – cut into quarters, sliced in half through the middle, toasted in my small oven, and eaten with butter or jam or cream cheese. At this point I’d bet it’s even delicious with peanut butter.

No matter where you live in the world, if you’re a bread maker, your work starts way before your customers get their hankering for a slice of your bread or toast, and usually even before the sun comes up. My bakers, who come from DongBei in northern China, are no different. Mr. Wang Jing Zhang and Mrs. Bi Yi Min start their loaves rising at 6am and continue to bake and serve their customers until the last of their daily supply is sold – that’s usually 8pm. You could say that bread making is not an easy life. But it’s a rewarding one – as “bakers feed the world”.

It’s said that Westerners eat bread and Chinese eat rice. Of course there is much truth to that in general, however Westerners eat bread more often in loaves, whereas Chinese have just as many varieties of bread products to choose from. What starts off as basic dough, but by changing the shape or changing from wheat to rice flour, produces a huge variety of foods by mixing in or sprinkling on some spices, more or less salt or sugar, other ingredients, such as eggs, or vegetables, or adding or subtracting oil.

(I like to call them) my bakers use one small grill-type round ‘oven’ for their many varieties of bread-type foods. Interesting enough, the temperature of 150C was used for all products, only shortening or lengthening the cooking/baking time…all done without a timer, amazingly!

When asked how she learned to make these breads, Yu Min, replies, “There’s no big secret to our recipes. These are the original green foods, free from chemicals with no food additives and made with pure ingredients. They’re the ones that we’ve been eating since we were little kids.”

Ingredients for the Guandu Baba Dough

The baba dough consists of plain wheat flour, water, yeast and a very tiny amount of MSG. When saying this she puts her thumb and finger together to suggest a pinch! The dough is mixed and shaped into larger than fist sized discs and set aside in their warm, small shop to rise on baking sheets until about doubled in size. The baking procedure is simple. Three babas at a time are placed on bottom of the ‘oven’ – a very lightly greased surface – and using the hand, are flattened. Then the lid of the ‘oven’ is closed. The babas bake on one side for 5 minutes, then are turned with wooden tongs and cooked on the other side for another 2 minutes with the lid closed again. After much discussion about the correct name for this oven, it’s been determined that the oven is called a “Bing Cheng 饼铛”. Voila, fresh, hot, wonderful smelling Guandu Baba!

Making Guandu Baba in the Bing Cheng

This dough is also used to make the large flat pancakes with a heavy, long rolling pin, in two flavours. More oil is added and the first pancakes come out of the oven quickly, then are sprinkled with sesame seeds on top, cut into small bits and put into a small plastic bag with a toothpick from snacking as you walk along doing your errands. There’s a lovely, crispy sesame taste to these.

Making Sesame Street Snack

The same pancake is morphed into a spicier snack, with a mixture of chilli sauce, sprinkled with green onion on the top.

Making Spicy Street Snack

The dough that’s wrapped in clear plastic is the original recipe with some oil and eggs added into the dough, and following the same procedure as above, is cooked in more oil and done very quickly.

Making Egg Pancake

The morning I was there, they had already made over 30 babas, many other kinds of bread products, and nice warm soya bean milk. And that was at 9:00 in the morning. During the mid day they will make another batch or two of dough and continue to bake more breads throughout the day, keeping their booth stocked with the tasty morsels that the customers have grown to love over the 6 years they have been in Kunming.

Making Egg and Green Onion Pancake

I am wondering if they’re going to expand or sell their business. Just last week, they had a woman and her son working together and the baker seemed to be teaching his sister-in-law and nephew how to do what he and his wife have been doing for so long…baking baba and traditional street snacks. It’s quite normal that with two more pairs of hands in the back, their business will improve, just as long as they don’t move or close down that will be fine…that would be a pity for all of the residents of my neighbourhood but mostly for me!

My hats off to this talented couple who, like so many others in the same shoes all over China, work incredibly long hours in cramped quarters with recipes passed down from generations using simple utensils and equipment to feed the masses with ever tasty and predicable breads!

In the FuXian Lake district near Kunming, there are many resorts popping up all on this deep, freshwater lake. It’s a summer resort destination for many tourists from the province as well as around China. The restaurants around the lake serve visitors delicious traditional delicacies native to the area. The most popular dishes are Copper Pot Fish and Copper Pot Rice. The popularity of their food arises from the use of simple, local ingredients (the fish come from the lake and Xuan Wei Ham is locally produced in Yunnan by salting and drying pork legs).

Xuan Wei Ham is used in this recipe and is reputed as one of the most famous hams in China; it’s a rich and tender pork, with a lovely aroma, a beautiful appearance and a delicious taste. Although produced in Yunnan since the mid-1700’s, the history of its popularity goes back 1909 when an entrepreneur in Xuan Wei City in the north-east of Yunnan Province to production into the ham-processing business to make this salt-cured and air or smoke-dried ham. Xuan Wei Ham has been a sought after food product and delicacy ever since it made it’s debut at the Panama-California Exposition from 1915 to 1917. This exposition was held in Balboa Park, San Diego, USA to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.

This dish gets its wonderful flavour from the Xuan Wei Ham. You can find deceivingly small copper pot at a Kitchen Market at Da Shang Hui for around 220rmb. Mine is the smallest size and a cute little pot that would be triple or quadruple the price were it bought in North America. Using the proportions here, the finished dish just barely covered the bottom of the pot but nonetheless produced a scrumptious combination, reminiscent of my holiday at FuXian Lake and worth every penny – er…rmb!

Yunnan Copper Pot

Serves 2-3

2/3 cup oil, divided

1 cup uncooked rice

3 – 4 cups of water, divided

1 cup Yunnan Xuan Wei ham cut into 1 cm cubes, using the fatty pieces as well as the meat

2 large potatoes, peeled and cut in small 2 cm pieces

Yunnan Xuan Wei Ham

Coat the copper pot inner wall with 1 tablespoon of oil.

Coat the pot with oil

Soak the rice in 2 cups of water for two hours. Drain the water and place the rice in the copper pot.

Heat a wok. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and heat over medium high temperature. Fry the Xuan Wei Ham cubes in the oil until they are crispy and browned around the edges and have a pale-coloured, cooked appearance. Remove the ham with a slotted spoon and put the cubes into the copper pot, leaving the oil in the wok.

Add the remaining oil to the wok and heat to very hot. Dry the potato chunks with paper towel and then carefully add them to the oil to prevent oil splatter, frying and turning frequently until the potato chunks are cooked on the inside and golden brown and crispy on the outside, which will take about 10 minutes. You may need to add more oil.

Put the potatoes in the pot together with the rice and ham and stir, adding 2 cups of water.

Yunnan Copper Pot Rice – mix the ingredients together in the pot

Cover the pot and bring the mixture to a boil on a high fire. Once the water is boiling, give the ingredients one stir and turn the heat to low. Then cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the rice is cooked. Check the rice at 10-minute intervals and add more water if necessary.

Remove from the heat, place the pot on a trivet on the table and your delicious copper pot rice is ready to serve straight from the copper pot. Enjoy!

My local wet market is a convenient distance from my apartment, about 2 city blocks. A few times a week, I walk over to see the freshest and newest veggies and fruit of the season. Over the years I’ve learned that one should follow what the locals are eating. In that way I eat fresh and high quality produce. Locals go to the market for their food supplies each day. But early morning isn’t usually the best time to get fresh things. It’s widely known that this produce is left overs from the day before, so later in the day is a good time to shop.

Skins of pomello are taken off the fruit by making regular cuts into the skin and then removing the fruit all in one go!

When I first began living in China the wet market was a scary place for me. The strange smells, so many completely foreign products and produce, different methods of doing daily business with no prices marked and the almost complete lack of cleanliness were overwhelming to me. Stacks of eggs of all kinds, shapes and sizes like small quail eggs, preserved duck eggs, and large ostrich eggs were daunting. I didn’t like buying eggs that weren’t refrigerated, or meat that was left out in the open, covered with flies, not to mention the animal parts hanging from hooks. Quite strange to me were the meats cut on chopping boards made from slices of tree trunks with a metal ring and two handles attached around the outside. But now it seems perfectly normal to me, maybe better than those plastic cutting boards we are all using these days!

Squabs or quails are cooked in turning roasting ovens and sold whole. The smells are enticing.

Getting used to the units of measurements was a bit difficult at first, but quickly I got to know the measures. Chinese foods are sold by the ‘jin’ which is 500 grams or a little over one pound and vendors will usually quote the price per jin. Smaller measures are ‘ke’ which is a gram, and ‘liang’, a tenth of a jin or 50 grams. And purchasing from the same vendors is to your benefit, building a relationship of trust and friendliness.

You won’t find fresh herbs at the local wet market; the closest thing you will find is cilantro and now in this southern climate I can buy fresh mint. I’ve got a new recipe for mint and green onion that I am looking forward to preparing, so that will likely be my next post. Cilantro is plentiful and a fantastic herb to use in dressings, sauces, soups and is added to all main dishes both for colour and splendid taste. Multiple varieties of garlic, ginger, and green onions also make cooking a real treat.

As time has gone on, I grown to love my trips to the market, even regularly trying new things that I’ve never eaten before. This local cake is sold by vendors on street corners. I’ve wanted to try it but felt I’d be getting too heavy a dose of dirt along with the cake so I never did. But the man sells his cake covered well and therefore the hygiene seemed better. The cake is sprinkled with sesame seeds…I love sesame seeds… and has the taste of a ginger/honey cake. A little on the dry side but nice just the same.

Now shopping at the local “wet” markets is always extremely rewarding. Not only are the financial rewards great, with the costs being low for locals, but it helps keep plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in my diet. Shopping in the local wet market made me become aware of the economy and resources around me.

I’ve been told that there is a Kunming market that sells Gan Ba Jun or Dried Beef Mushrooms that have already been cleaned and sell for a very healthy sum. One day when I am really in ‘desperate need’ of the scrumptious taste, I’ll figure out where to go to get them, but buying that without being cleaned is not is the cards. I had bought one and half pounds of them for a party a while back and it took three of us 5 hours to clean them. So that’s not the kind of fun activity for me!

As promised, my recipe for Gan Ba Jun Wild Mushrooms:

Gan Ba Jun Mushrooms, Yunnan Style

Serves 4

½ cup oil (for some good reason, the Chinese insist on using a lot of oil for cooking wild mushrooms – I have yet to learn why)

8-10 long green chillies, sliced

1 pound gan ba jun wild mushroom pieces

½ teaspoon salt

Heat the wok, add the oil and heat the oil. Lower the heat to medium-low and add the chillies.

Add the mushrooms and cook over a medium to medium-low heat for 8-10 minutes, or until well cooked. Add the salt.

Being a teacher, I was invited to join my friends with their children who were off to celebrate Teacher’s Day. The skies were blue and the weather was end-of-summer-like. A perfect day to go to the farm and pick our own vegetables.

In Canada, when you say you are going to the farm, you picture a huge, flat piece of rolling land out in the country. A farm in Yunnan is a very different picture. Yunnan’s mountainous terrain makes it almost impossible to find flat land. This farm was nestled in the valley of rolling land and the plots of vegetables are interspersed with handmade rivulets of fresh water from the fish pod at the center of the valley. We picked corn, potatoes, romaine lettuce, squash, eggplant hot chilli peppers, cabbage, green onions, cilantro, mint, runner beans, and radishes. Sitting by the first rivulet, we spent more than an hour chatting in the sun, diligently cleaning the fresh produce with fresh clean water by the stream while the children ran up and down the hills, trying to catch fish, and feeding and chasing the donkeys.

The women are afraid of the UV rays of the sun, since Yunnan is in a high altitude plain…almost 2000 meters high…so we are closer to the sun and therefore the harmful effects. I took the job of shelling the beans.

We barbecued the corn in their husks and potatoes in their skins on an open fire.

The kitchen, no running water, hundreds of flies, a huge wok built into the counter with a wood-burning fire underneath, concrete floor…the farmer’s kitchen. All the women joined in the cooking, each one doing a different dish. I watched and took notes – more fodder for my next cookbook, Secrets of Yunnan Cuisine.

I was impressed to see an entire little plot of mint growing, I never did see mint in Beijing or in Qingdao, so this was a treat. When I mentioned this to QiuPing, the fact that also loved the taste of mint and now use it in many of my dishes, she said she would make me a special dish. Yes, she was right, it was special. The mint dish is in the bottom left hand corner.

We all joined in a wonderful vegetable lunch served outside under the canopy of the pine trees and beside the open fire pit.

Yunnan Mint and Green Onion

Serves 4

3 tablespoons oil

2 – 3 cups chopped fresh mint, leaves and stems

2 – 3 cups chopped green onion, white and green parts

1 teaspoon Chinese chicken bouillion granules*

1-2 teaspoons soy sauce

Heat the wok, add the oil, and wait for the oil to heat up again. Add the mint and the green onion in equal proportions and stir-fry for one to two minutes or until the greens are almost cooked, but still brightly green in colour.

Ass the remaining seasonings and mix thoroughly, continuing to cook for an additional minute.